Penguicon 2026

This follow-up to my previous talk this weekend, about how to avoid starting a cult, discusses the equal and opposite problem of hyper-individuated alienation. Almost everyone abandons voluntary associations at the slightest friction. Life is reduced to employment, a spouse, children, pets, and maybe some extended family. A life without voluntary associations is frictionless and predictable, but group skills atrophy, leading to anxiety. This is not a moral failing, just a predictable cultural drift. What can we do, without nagging or shaming, to make group life worth the trouble?